Campaigner

Review summary

Good points

• Create emails through templates or from scratch

• Large selection of templates

• Detailed reporting and statistics

• Good campaign management tools

Bad points

• Lack of advanced features

Our verdict

The Campaigner service is a good, solid email creation performer – a relatively low cost system for sending emails with a good number of features and tools at your disposal. Campaigner is suitable for beginners as well as more experienced email marketers.

Full review

With a good set of reporting tools and features, a large selection of email templates and a range of other tools, we think Campaigner ticks many boxes when it comes to creating and managing email campaigns. Take a look at the feature set and see what you think about Campaigner’s offering.

Setup

The Campaigner cost is based on the number of emails you send, and you can have unlimited contacts in your subscriber database. The price starts at $10 a month for up to 1,000 emails, goes through $25 a month for between 1,001 and 2,500 emails, and ends at $200 a month for up to 50,000 emails. If you are sending more than 50,000 emails a month you pay for custom cost-per-email pricing. You can try the service free for 30 days and you get 500 email templates, plus phone and email support. Set-up is simple with a wizard that helps you through the process and an introductory tour.

Email creation

With more than 500 ready-created templates on offer, sorted by industry, you have plenty to choose from and it’s easy to choose. Then you can change the colours, the layout and the font according to your business needs. There’s an image editor included to make basic edits to photos and images. You don’t need to code; you can have a personalised email ready to send in a few minutes. But if you have coding skills you can add the amount of customization you want to achieve the right look for your campaign. Check to see how your email will look to subscribers before you send it out.

Campaign creation

Create sign-up forms without using any code to place in your emails or on your website. For your mailing list, Campaigner makes it easy to bring all your contacts together into one centralized list by importing your contacts using .txt, .csv or .xls formats. You can also add new contacts when they come in using your computer or a mobile device. Segmentation is provided with the Campaigner package and you can divide your contacts into separate lists based on what your subscribers bought, what they clicked on, or how engaged they are with your service. This is useful for sending out emails that get better results, and you can keep as many lists and sub-lists as you need. Your subscribers can also choose themselves which lists they want to be on by changing their preferences in the subscription management form. In addition, set up emails on a scheduled basis so you can put together a campaign that gives subscribers information and entertainment as you have devised it. The triggered message feature is also useful – set up a rule to automatically send an email to subscribers based on their actions, for example if they click on a link or forward your email.

Deliverability

The Campaigner deliverability rates are at about 97 percent and the service automatically checks your emails to make sure they are not going to cause problems when sent. The unsubscribe option is automatically added to new emails and these unsubscribes are taken out of your contact lists.

Tracking & reporting

With Campaigner you get a set of reports giving you information on how your emails performed, including information on who received the email, who opened it, which links they clicked on, and what else they did with the message, i.e. forwarded it to a friend. A snapshot of your mailing list gives you the opportunity to see how many people you have on each list and how many people have unsubscribed. Most email creation services provide these features and Campaigner gives you a solid set of tools to use. One useful feature is the ability to split a list and test two versions of a campaign, for example by using a different subject line or a different image, to see which one performs better.

Features

Personalization – Make each email personal by adding the recipient’s name and other additional information that makes it more like a conversation and less like spam. The Campaigner tools also allow you to change the From line so you can send separate campaigns relating to sales, or tech support etc.

Social media – Add the Facebook plugin to let readers share more easily with their contacts. You can also monitor the reach of your message by enabling the social sharing feature when you send a new campaign. This lets you monitor and track when someone clicks on a message relating to your campaign in Facebook, Twitter etc.

Ease of use

Campaigner is fast to use and simple to manage –factors we find really helpful when it comes to creating and managing email campaigns. All the features are logically organised and the tools for reporting are easy to use. The dashboard is your place for a quick glance at how your campaigns are taking shape, and also the status of your subscription. In all, the Campaigner features are good for beginners and more experienced users alike.

Help & support

Campaigner offers telephone support that is supposedly available 24 hours a day, which is a good addition to the service. There is also a chat function that puts you through to a Campaigner representative. Further support options include a searchable help database, training pages, a resource centre, user manual and demos.

Overall

Campaigner has all the features and tools you need to create a professional email, send it to the right people, and monitor its success. While there are some advanced features that are not available, this is a good service for people who want something easy to control and manage with a good amount of opportunity for customization.

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